The TV anime Little Witch Academia,produced by TRIGGER, began airing on January 8, 2017. The first Little Witch Academia, released in 2013, is said to be full of the true spirit of the studio with its beginnings stemming from the very founding of TRIGGER itself. It was shown at Anime Mirai 2013, a project that aims to educate young animators. It later gained popularity around the world after being uploaded to YouTube for a brief period of time.

In July of the same year, the studio used Kickstarter for funding a new LWA project and reached their target amount in just 5 hours. The work was titled Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade and was released in 2015.

In 2017, Akko and her friends have their very own TV anime series. I went to Yoh Yoshinari, the director of the movie and the new TV series, to talk about his feelings as a creator and what he thought about producing until now.

[Report and writing: Ayaka Kawamata]

TV Anime Little Witch Academia
Began January 8, 2017 on TOKYO MX, BS11, Kansai TV (KTV)
Released every Monday on Netflix from January 9, 2017http://tv.littlewitchacademia.jp

■ ‘There are so many things I want to do, but there’s not enough time to do them.’

──The TV series starts with Akko, Lotte, and Sucy enrolling at Luna Nova Magical Academy.
Why did you start over from the beginning instead of a sequel to the movies?

Director Yoh Yoshinari
‘The previous ones only had what was needed for the story and didn’t really explain the world of Little Witch Academia. So, I thought it would be easier to understand the world if it started from the beginning. I used to decide everything by myself, but there are some things I need to leave to the other staff this time around. You can’t make a story in 30 minutes if you don’t establish the world and setting.’

──What kind of themes will the story have and what goes on this time?

‘We thought What kind of challenge should we give to Akko for the main plot?’ We started constructing the story from there.’

──Amanda and Jasminka from Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade also appear in the TV series.

‘Yes. I really did think about many settings and backgrounds for Amanda and Jasminka and I wanted to make a story about them. However, the story focuses on Akko so I couldn’t work on it that much. There are so many things I want to do, but there’s not enough time to do them.’

──I’ve seen the clips of the show and the story moves really fast- there is a lot of information packed in to it.
And yet that’s not enough…?

‘Not at all. We did cut down as much as we could with it. Maybe we worked on it too much [laugh]’

──For the TV anime, have you thought about any differences between the movies?

‘Well, one thing is that I wanted to make it for the kids. Like Nintama Rantarou. I mean, TRIGGER doesn’t have any works aimed at children yet so we wanted to show that we can also create stuff like that. The crazy parts are fun in Kill la Kill and Gurren Lagann, but we wanted to move on into a different direction. I want to broaden the scope and make Little Witch Academia an anime that will not choose people.

──What were you aware of so as to make the anime enjoyable for adults and kids alike?

‘When you go about completely surprising people you might completely flip the world of the anime on its head or you can excite them by meeting their expectations, right? It might be easy to understand if you imagine [Hiroyuki] Imaishi’s Gurren Lagann. That is the royal road and has a bit of a dark side to it too. Everyone can enjoy a bit of surprise. You have to think about how to find a balance. You have to season it just right- it’s boring if you don’t surprise the audience, but you can’t go around just changing the anime’s world willy-nilly.’

──Takafumi Hori, who joined the production of Little Witch Academia for Anime Mirai 2013, is the chief animator this time. What is his actual role?

‘He’s in charge of the highlight scenes, not fixing the whole thing. It’s very valuable having someone who can draw difficult pictures.’

──What kind of scenes are those? Is it the showy movements using magic?

‘It’s easy to draw those kinds of perfect imaginary movements. It’s more difficult to draw, say, animal movements that everyone knows- like horses and rats. It’s very valuable for people who have a variety of expressions or who have the talent to draw many things in TV series. I’m a director this time, so I can’t do the real animating job. I have to leave it to someone to free up my own hands so I rely on Hori there.’

──Do you feel impatient with things where you can’t move your hands?

‘I do feel impatient, but I usually have fun leaving things to others. There are some interesting expressions that I will never draw. The theme at Anime Mirai was to show off techniques, so the aim is something different this time. I need to leave it to others for the TV series…too many things to do [laugh]
But I hope it becomes a challenge for the young ones. It’s really something different to make my own ideal film.’

■ A Stellar Staff Lineup

──I heard that Hiroyuki Imaishi and other well-known staff members are part of the production this time.

‘Imaishi is joining for the storyboards. The work he makes is really appealing with a good tempo and a bit of a dark side. The storyboards he was in charge of have a tempo that is twice as fast [laugh] It might be hard for the people who are watching it since he is doing something close to Space patrol Ruruko in 30 minutes [laugh] And I’m also asking other people who have a fast tempo like Masayuki and Kunihiko Sakurai. Masayuki’s storyboard were the most jam-packed [laugh]

──The staff line-up is also top-notch. I’d like to hear about location hunting in the UK after Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade.

‘It was more like we went there to understand the atmosphere rather than location-hunting [laugh] We went to Edinburgh, London, Oxford, and the Cotswolds. Like Japan, the UK is an archipelago, but there aren’t really any mountains, so the landscape is quite flat. That left quite the impression on me. Also, I’m sure a lot of people have the same impression already, but there are so many old buildings made from stone. In Japan, the modern buildings look totally different from the old ones, but I felt like over there the modern buildings are built with an atmosphere in keeping with the old ones.

──Are there any aspects of the movie and TV series that you feel viewers should not miss?

‘I try not to make it like the mahou shoujo (magical girl) stuff that you see everywhere. Of course, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that genre. Akko comes to Luna Nova with that kind of mahou shoujo image of in her head, but she actually notices that the reality is different. A common theme of the movies and TV series is discovering that things may be different to how you originally thought they would be.

──That’s right. It’s difficult to put this work into the same category as mahou shoujo. What is it? Witch Girl anime? I need to think twice before calling it that. Maybe I might need to look back again from ‘What is mahou shoujo and what is magic in the first place?’

‘There are many stories about witches and wizards. A lot of them came from the West, like Lord of the Rings and many others. There are even the Arthurian legends if you look back even further. They came over to Japan but were morphed into the mahou shoujo genre. Most Japanese may be familiar with mahou shoujo, but if you look back at where it came from, they may realise that the magical stories are not how they expected them to be. I’m hoping to express to the audience, and to Akko, the history that has built up over time and show a respect for it. I’m still lacking in knowledge when it comes to history and old things so I would like to do it with respect.

──This is the first time that you have directed a TV series. What would you like us to expect from Little Witch Academia’s TV broadcast?

‘I used to be careful to fully express the characters in just a short amount of time, but I’d like to slowly unveil the depth and interests of the characters over the course of the TV series. Please look forward to the show!’

＜STORY＞
Since seeing Shiny Chariot’s magic show when she was a child, it has been Akko Agari’s dream to become a witch. In the hope of fulfilling her dream, she enrols at Chariot’s alma mater, the traditional and prestigious Luna Nova Magical Academy.

A new town, a new school life and new friends too.

At the witch’s academy she gets involved in all sorts of marvellous classes, such as how to ride a broomstick and how to use magic. However, with her friends Lotte and Sucy, she gets mingled in all sorts of boisterous antics that are only possible at a school like this!

Akko’s first step to becoming the witch she dreamed of starts here at Luna Nova!

①【Anime version】THCS-60134／￥1,600(+tax)／12cm single CD＋DVD／Newly drawn for anime jacket
②【Artist version】THCS-60135／￥1,600(+tax)／12cm single CD＋DVD／Newly taken for artist jacket
③【Normal version】THCS-60136／￥1,200(+tax)／12cm single CD／Newly taken for artist jacket

Special features (Clips and inclusion)
①DVD（Creditless opening）／Storyboard booklet of opening movie
②DVD[「Hoshi wo Tadoreba」Music video]／Photo book